


Localities of Perspective

by AVegetarianCannibal



Series: Slice of Life [7]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Memory Palace, Misunderstandings, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Sexual Frustration, smitten cannibal, starting over is hard even for Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-23 14:47:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15608628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal
Summary: Hannibal finally has everything he's ever wanted, and he's not quite sure what to do about it.





	Localities of Perspective

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shukkhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shukkhy/gifts).



> Whereas all the "Slice of Life" series has been told from Will's perspective up to this point, this installment is from Hannibal's. It covers the same time period as ["Look Back: the Voyage South"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15270300) and part of the eponymous [first chapter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13377942). Many of the same scenes appear in this one, but now we get to experience them with Hannibal.

**The Atlantic**

He has Will in his arms as they tip over the edge of the bluff. There's a sudden loss of solid ground beneath his feet and a disoriented lurch in his heart. It's a feeling not unlike the sensation one experiences when one falls in love, and keeps falling in love.

He's never experienced bliss so sweet in all his life. He's going to die---they're both going to die---but he is content. He is at peace with to end at Will's hands, and with Will's hands.

"So be it," he thinks, or maybe he says it out loud. Difficult to discern the sound of his own voice from the wind screaming in his ears and the roar of the Atlantic as it rises up to meet them.

He wraps his arms tighter around Will's waist.

_So be it._

They hit the water. Together.

***

Icy water spills him onto the rocky beach, vomiting him up like a meal the sea has rudely rejected.

His first thought is of Will, to whom he is somehow still clinging, despite all the odds and viciousness of the tides. He feels a pulse beneath his fingers and the soft rise and fall of Will's breathing. He angles up his head, and catches sight of Will's face. The face of a bruised and bloody angel, fallen, quite literally, from lofty heights.

His second thought is that landing is considerably less blissful than falling. Surviving hurts. He prides himself on having mental control over pain, but this is beyond anything he has ever known. He curses in Lithuanian, his mind grasping for its first language, reacting in instinct.

"I knew he would set you free, eventually."

Hannibal turns slightly onto his back. "Chiyoh?"

She stands over him, full moon behind her, rifle slung over her shoulder. "He couldn't help himself," she says with a sigh. "It would be best to leave him here."

"If we're going somewhere," Hannibal says, "then Will must be given the option of going with us."

He can't see the expression on her face but he can guess what she's feeling by the way her posture changes. Her very silhouette bristles.

"He makes you... containable," she says. "He makes you _want_ to be containable."

"You said yourself he set me free," Hannibal reminds her, offended by the strain in his own voice. It's everything he can do to maintain consciousness. The only thing keeping him from the black abyss is the thought that Chiyoh might leave Will behind if he's not awake to stop her. "Please. I promise you, going anywhere without him now would be far worse than returning to prison."

She looks back out over the water. Hannibal knows her well enough to know she's considering dragging Will back into the Atlantic. Perhaps she wants to put the barrel of her rifle to his head first. It isn't as if anybody could stop her.

"We will take him with us," she says at last. "For now."

She helps him to his feet, her gloved hands warm in his own. He leans against her as she leads him a short distance away to a dark gray sedan. It doesn't look like the kind of car she would choose for herself, and Hannibal wonders if she stole it.

After she arranges him in the back seat, she pauses. She's thinking about getting into the driver's seat and speeding off while she has the chance.

"Please," Hannibal says.

To his great relief, she returns to the beach for Will. Hannibal can hear them talking, but the sea and the wind swallow up any clarity of what they're saying. She might have referred to Will as "nakama," but perhaps not. Hannibal drifts in and out of awareness until he feels a solid weight settle against him.

"Will?"

"Hannibal?" comes the reply.

"I'm here," Hannibal tells him.

Will holds up his hand. Hannibal isn't sure if it's a gesture of futile exasperation or if he's meant to hold it, but he is optimistic in this moment and chooses to believe it's the latter.

"Where are we going?" Will asks.

"Where do you want to go?" Hannibal asks, not certain he truly wants to know the answer.

"Away, with you," Will says.

In the front seat, Chiyoh grips the steering wheel so tightly that the leather of her gloves creak in protest.

"Ishi no ue de misuteta hou ga yokatta, kono futari," she says. "Hannibal mo sou omocchau hi ga kuru yo."

Hannibal just shakes his head. With Will leaning soft and heavy against him, breathing and alive, he cannot imagine ever regretting the decision to save his life.

* * *

 

**The Little House**

He doesn't remember losing consciousness, but opens his eyes with an innate feeling that he's been out for longer than a nap. He touches his fingertips to his chin and confirms that he now sports more than two days of beard growth. As his eyes focus, he takes in the dusty stucco ceiling and the walls paneled in wood veneer that's peeling at the corners. It's not _entirely_ surprising that he's gone to hell, he supposes.

"Will?" he calls out, his voice raspy and dry. He clears his throat and tries again, louder: "Will!"

"You were intubated during the surgery," Chiyoh says as she walks into the room.A small "v" between her brows is the only sign that gives away her worry. "Don't strain your throat."

Hannibal hardly cares about that. "Is he---"

"He's in the other bedroom," she says. "I thought it would be easier for you and I to talk."

He doesn't ask for the topic of conversation, as he can already guess. Instead, he throws off the quilt that's been covering his body so he can have a thorough look at himself.

His wounds have been bandaged and his abdomen wrapped in a compression binder. No---not a binder, but an Ace bandage that has a quantity of straight, butter-yellow hairs stuck in the weave. If he had to hazard a guess, he might say he'd been given a bandage very recently used by a Labrador retriever.

"So David and Peter are recycling their medical supplies now," he muses. "Did they put up much of a protest when you showed up with us in tow?"

There is a chair beside the bed, but Chiyoh chooses to lean against the window frame, arms crossed. "Not much," she says. "Someone else might have thought it unusual that you asked to be taken to veterinarians."

"But not you," Hannibal supposes.

"You have reasons for what you do," she says. "What were your reasons this time?"

"There were a few, select dinner guests I chose not to mention at my trial," he says. "I thought they might appreciate the anonymity enough to express their gratitude some day, should the need arise."

She raises one eyebrow at him. "And you thought the need might arise for two veterinarians even as you faced a death sentence?"

Hannibal shrugs. "I thought Will might insist on bringing a dog or two with him if he ever chose to set me free."

Her expression darkens---not into menace but into despair. "Everything you did, everything from turning yourself in to even how you spoke in court, was with your nakama in mind."

"Yes." Hannibal doesn't know a simpler way to acknowledge the obvious truth of this, although he considers adding an "of course."

She nods and pushes herself away from the window. "He will change his mind and leave you," she says. "I will not save you again, Hannibal. Not from him. You are determined to be done in by that man and I see no point in standing in your way."

"We all have to be done in by something," he says.

He smiles, but it doesn't reach her. She's already turning towards the door, trailing finality behind her like the widening wake of a boat disappearing over the horizon.

***

He is weak from his injuries and subsequent healing, so he has to make a choice between following Chiyoh before she can drive away or making himself presentable before he goes in search of Will.

He chooses the latter. Of course.

It takes him what feels like an interminably long time to remove his IV line and Foley catheter. His body is slow to obey his mind's commands, and waves of dizziness threaten to drop him to his knees more than once. He would curse himself, but that would be a pointless exercise and only delay him further. He simply grits his teeth and carries on.

He finds a mirror in the hallway outside his bedroom and flinches at the face that looks back at him. It's not vanity to acknowledge what one is blessed with, so he's never considered himself vain, but the sudden absence of aesthetic vigor is... _disappointing_. And his beard is growing in whiter than he remembered it. He's going to look like an old man to Will.

He thinks about finding a bathroom and razor, but hears stirring in the other bedroom. A moment later, Will curses in obvious pain.

Hannibal sets off in that direction as quickly as he can, fighting back nausea and encroaching vertigo with sheer determination and the much more important desire to see Will again.

He stops at the doorway, momentarily stunned. Will is pale and bruised, and resembles a corpse except that he's moving. He knows Will looked much the same twice before, and by his hand, and he knows he never wants Will to look like that again. It's all he can do to stop himself from taking Will into his arms and kissing his face everywhere that wouldn't bring him immediate agony.

"Where are we?" Will asks.

Hannibal explains about Chiyoh, about her little hidden house and how she's probably gone for good now. "She says you're a bad influence on me. She can't bear to see me the way I am with you."

Will laughs and blanches at the pain. "I'm a bad influence on _you_?"

Hannibal can't help but smile. "I can't say I disagree. Who else would ever inspire me to give up my freedom?"

"I guess she could say the same about me," Will says, his face flushing pink.

Hannibal makes a mental note to check his temperature soon, but compels himself to broach the subject of their immediate future before he loses the moment. He tells Will about the boat he bought ages ago, although he leaves that part out for now, and offers to give it to him in exchange for the one he left in Italy, or to share it with him in a mutual escape. He finds that he can't look at Will when he says this.

"I have a question first," Will says.

Hannibal looks up. "Anything."

"You're not going to try to eat me, are you?" Will asks. "I cannot stress enough that no part of me is for you to eat. Not even the parts you might think are unimportant---they're all staying exactly where they belong, which is on my body and not in your belly."

Although Will's tone is more or less jocular, Hannibal feels the breath leave his body as if he's been struck. It pains him more than any physical injury that Will might still fear him. Not that Hannibal can blame him. He was an outrageous fool that day in Italy, and every day before. Surely there's some beautiful line from an ancient saga or pertinent historical analogy he can draw upon to reassure Will...

"It would have been the greatest regret of my life if Mason's men hadn't interrupted me that day," he says. "You know I'm not fond of regret; I'm even less fond of remaking my mistakes."

There's more he could say. More he wants to say, but he bites down on it. There will be occasion later to ask Will if he has any nefarious plans of his own, or else time will reveal his intentions. 

"I'll take the boat," Will finally says. "I want it---for both of us."

Hannibal thrills at the way the words echo what he'd said on the bluff and laid his feelings bare for Will to see. He wants to say something beautiful and meaningful to acknowledge embarking on their future together, something profound to the very depths of his soul.

"All right then!" is actually comes out of his mouth instead.

***

They decide to stay in Chiyoh's house a little while longer---long enough that they'll be able to heal a bit more, but not so long as to risk detection. It is secluded, far from any main road. Chiyoh doesn't return but she left behind food and a burner phone Hannibal uses to procure supplies for their voyage. .

It is an exquisite sort of torture to have access to Will now and to not know entirely what to do with it. He tends to Will's wounds, changes the bandaging and cleans up whatever drains out of the deeper ones. "I could do most of this for myself," Will says once. Hannibal just shushes him and reminds him he's a doctor and knows how better to do these things.

The truth is he wants this contact with Will, and he doesn't know why he can't simply say so. They have hunted and killed together now. Their shared experience with the Dragon might as well have been the consummation of a marriage of sorts, and yet Hannibal finds himself as shy as a virgin, and he has never been shy, even when he _was_ a virgin.

After he makes sure Will is comfortable for the night, he opens a door in his memory palace and walks into Bedelia Du Maurier's living room.

She is dressed beautifully in moss green silk, sitting in the same place she sat when she was his therapist, a tumbler of whiskey held in one hand with languid grace.

"I wondered when you might come to see me," she says, amused.

Hannibal plucks a favorite suit from his memory---the charcoal and blood orange one---and sits down across from her. "Perhaps I'll come to see you for real some day," he says. "If Will is amenable to the idea."

One corner of her mouth moves in the smallest of smiles. "Of _course_ you conjured me up to talk about Will Graham. He was a favorite topic of yours from the moment we left Baltimore together."

"Before then, too," Hannibal reminds her.

"Indeed." She takes a long sip.

Hannibal leans forward in his chair. "I find myself---"

She interrupts him with a wave of her hand. "You don't know what to with Will Graham or with yourself now that you have everything you want. The two of you may as well have been reborn when you fell. You are new with each other, even as the past stains your skin like afterbirth."

He considers that for a moment. "I hadn't expected to survive."

"Surviving is stubbornly more complicated than dying," she says. "Dying is a period at the end of a story. Living is an ellipsis that implies a mystery about what comes next. It's up to the reborn to decide that, and it's such a messy thing."

Hannibal smiles as if she's really there. "Your metaphors are all over the place, Doctor."

"You're on quite a strong opioid at the moment," she says in her... _his_ defense. She sighs. "I'm supposed to tell you what to do, is that it?"

"I know what I _want_ to do," Hannibal says. "Gather him in my arms as he's falling asleep and have his head dip down to my chest, and I want to kiss his brow and tell him I've thought he was beautiful and dangerous from the moment I met him."

"Then you should," she says. "But you're not going to."

"I might," Hannibal sniffs.

"You aren't," she says more insistently. "Until now, you've never been afraid to lose what you have. You'll frighten him off and he'll run back to his perfectly pleasant, perfectly safe wife."

Hannibal blinks. He hadn't thought of the wife at all since the night Will barged in to his cell, all perfect, gorgeous fury... Except, on some level, quite deep somewhere in his mind, he _must_ have been thinking of her, for this facsimile of Bedelia to bring her up now.

"You could always still eat him," she says with a cool smirk. "Then he wouldn't leave you."

Hannibal gets to his feet and straightens the lines of his suit. He gives Bedelia a polite smile. "I think that'll do for now," he says, and relegates her back into the recesses of his memory palace.

***

In the morning, Hannibal finds Will bent awkwardly over the kitchen sink, fingers inching ever closer to a bottle of bright blue dish detergent. His buttocks look so shapely beneath the thin fabric of his robe, like a plump Christmas goose neatly wrapped for the giving...

Hannibal snaps out of it. "Will, no!" It comes out rather more forcefully than he intended. "You'll... ruin your hair."

Will sighs in defeat. "Don't worry. I can't even raise my arms up high enough to reach the goddamn soap. Fuck!"

"It's only been a few days," Hannibal says. "Be patient with yourself. You nearly died. I think _almost_ being able to wash your own hair is something of an accomplishment, considering."

"Right," Will scoffs.

That dreaded feeling of shyness returns, but Hannibal tamps it down. "Are you glad?"

Will straightens himself up from the sink, his face flushed from that little effort. "Glad about not dying?" Hannibal nods. "I'd be gladder if my hair didn't still feel like it was coated with salt."

It's not quite the "yes, thank God I've moved on from my wife" Hannibal might have hoped for, but it's not the worst reply in the world, either.

"Come with me," he says. Will raises an eyebrow. "I'm going to wash your hair."

After a moment, Will follows him down the hall and into the small bathroom. He pauses before turning away and taking off his robe. He casts a backwards glance at Hannibal and begins pushing down his underwear.

Even bruised and stitched, it is a lovely physique. Even soft in the middle from untold casseroles and... _delivered pizzas_... it is lovely. It belongs to Will, so of course it is beautiful for Hannibal to behold. He commands himself to focus on sliding the vanity bench from the sink to the shower. It isn't as if he's never seen Will in the nude before.

"Is that how you want me?" Will asks.

Hannibal fumbles the showerhead. "It's permissible to get your sutures wet as long as we don't soak them. Sit. Lean your head back as much as you can bear."

Will does as he's told and closes his eyes as the warm water drenches his scalp. "Mm. I can't remember the last time someone washed my hair for me."

"Not even---" Hannibal cuts himself off. _Not even your wife?_ "Other times you were injured?"

"Hm, yeah, I guess so," Will says. His voice is dreamy and soft. "I could fall asleep like this."

Hannibal feels the exact opposite of drowsy as he begins working shampoo through Will's hair. It smells tannic like crushed grapes and herbaceous like lemongrass, and Hannibal knows instantly he will come to associate those scents with Will from then on.

"The warm water feels good on my jaw," Will says.

"I'll make you a compress when we're done," Hannibal tells him.

"I can help you wash your hair first," Will offers.

Hannibal nearly drops the showerhead again at the thought of Will touching him. "I think I can manage on my own. My shoulders didn't take quite the beating that yours did."

Will makes a sound that Hannibal wants to believe is one of disappointment, but knows it can't possibly be.

* * *

 

**The Boat**

It's cold as the winters of Hannibal's childhood their first night at sea, but the frigid temperatures hardly seem to matter as he lies pressed against Will's back. The wound in his belly is not so healed that it doesn't ache from the contact, but Hannibal doesn't care about that, either. Will accepted his offer of bodily warmth and _that's_ what matters.

In this position, his nose is all but buried in the back of Will's head. His hair still smells faintly of the shampoo, but also like Will's skin and sweat. Hannibal falls asleep like that, with his lips no more than an inch from the nape of Will's neck.

***

Will's soft moaning reaches him as clearly as if he'd called Hannibal's name.

He is instantly awake, and finds himself staring into Will's sleeping face. At some point while they slept, Will turned over onto his other side so that they now lie so close together that they breathe each other's air. Will's brow furrows and his eyes move beneath their soft petal lids. He moans again and tilts up his head as if he's being kissed.

It's too much to bear.

Far too much!

Hannibal turns away, becoming the "little spoon" in this shared tableau, but immediately realizes he's only made things worse for himself. Will's hand falls upon his waist, then slides down his hip. His fingers dig in. Hannibal feels the undeniable length of Will's erection pressing insistently into the small of his back. It's so hot, so searingly hot, it's like being branded all over again---in ways that are both so much better _and_ so much more terrible than the Verger brand.

"Softly," Will murmurs in his sleep. "Softly for now."

Hannibal gasps as Will begins thrusting against him. He resists pushing back with his buttocks to give Will a better angle. He cannot allow this to continue to completion, even as he himself is growing almost painfully hard.

He presses his eyes shut and thinks of Frederick Chilton's voice until he's flaccid again.

He clears his throat. "Will, wake up." He reaches for an excuse, any excuse, and chances upon, "There's.... a storm."

The boat is barely rocking, but perhaps Will won't notice in his dazed state.

Will squints around in the dark. "Are the boxes out there strapped down?"

"I'll make certain," Hannibal says as he gets out of bed. The boat feels even colder after leaving the intense heat of Will's body. "Go back to sleep. I'll be back if I need your help."

He tucks the blanket back around Will snugly enough to keep him in place for at least a few minutes, and makes his way out of the cabin as quickly as he can without looking like he's fleeing.

He walks straight into Bedelia's living room. He doesn't even bother to remember a nice suit for himself this time.

She sighs as he sits down across from her. "Hannibal, has it occurred to you to simply _enjoy_ this uncertainty?"

"Of course not," he scoffs. "It's wretched."

She gives him a kinder look than the real Bedelia probably would have. "You're falling in love for at least the second time, with the same man. How many people are ever that lucky?"

Hannibal fidgets, picking at the knee of his flannel pajama bottoms. "I want a second opinion."

Just like that, he's back in his own Baltimore kitchen with an apron tied neatly around his waist, even though he's still in his pajamas. Bedelia is nowhere to be seen.

Instead, Alana Bloom stands there chopping vegetables in her agonizingly haphazard way, dooming them to imperfect cooking. She smiles at him as the real Alana has not smiled at him for a very long while.

"So you're here to talk about Will," she says, mutilating a carrot. "How does he make you feel?"

"Conflicted," Hannibal says.

She nods and purses her lips thoughtfully. "And you thought everything would be crystal clear the moment you were together again."

"It _was_."

"But it isn't now," she surmises. "Because you didn't plan this far. Hannibal, welcome to how the rest of us have to live!"

"I want to know if he feels for me what I feel for him," Hannibal says, fully aware that there's a slim chance he might be pouting.

"Ask him."

"No."

She gives mercy to the vegetables and sets her knife aside. Hands on her hips, she closes the distance between them and gives him a stern look. "It can't _possibly_ be a deal breaker to you if he's not physically attracted. I _know_ it's not. What you have with him doesn't depend on whether or not you two ever bang."

"Of course it doesn't," Hannibal says. This Alana understands him so much better than the real one ever did, thanks to the source material. "But I still want to know. Just so I can put it out of my mind."

"Then _put_ it out of your mind," she says. "You know he's a flirt. Stop reading things into it and just get on with the rest of your life. What happens happens, Hannibal, just like it does for everyone else."

All at once, his old kitchen dissolves around him and he finds himself standing in the little boat he now shares with Will.

Will calls to him from the cabin. "Do you need help? Is everything secure in there?"

"Everything's fine," Hannibal calls back. "The... storm isn't as bad as I'd feared."

***

Over the next few days, Hannibal finds himself relaxing into their new life together. They read together, sitting close on the bed, sometimes falling asleep in an amicable tangle. They take turns preparing meals and making the jokes about Hannibal cooking canned food. He's able to think about the present and not worry so much about the future or what everything _means_. It's almost like being his old self again. The future seems so much more expansive now, as limitless as the horizon beyond the bow of their boat.

Then comes the day that Will says they should go ashore in Savannah, and he says it while he's holding Hannibal's hand to his freshly unbandaged cheek.

"We should refuel," he says, even though there's plenty of fuel and no reason to stop. He goes on about motels, but Hannibal hardly hears him over all the old doubts that come rushing back. _Chiyoh told you he would leave._

"I don't think it's safe," Hannibal says quietly.

"It'll be perfectly safe," Will insists. He all but bats his lashes up at Hannibal. "Please?"

Hannibal nods. _He's going to leave._ "If it's what you want, then it's what I want."

The horizon crashes over him and it's like nearly drowning all over again.

* * *

 

**Savannah**

As soon as they get into their absolute hovel of a motel room, Hannibal begins undressing. If this is going to be his last night with Will before they part ways, he can at least make himself presentable for it. "I thought I'd have a shower before," he says. He clears his throat. "Before... whatever happens."

Behind him, he hears Will tearing out of his own clothes. He turns around to see Will hopping from foot to foot as he tries to kick off his boots, such is the depth of his impatience.

"How rude of me not to offer to let you go first," Hannibal says, giving Will an apologetic smile and trying not to notice that Will's genitals are swaying jauntily to and fro. "Did you want to...?"

"Oh." Will ceases his ridiculous hopping and sits on the corner of the hideous bed. "No, you go on," he says, looking crestfallen. "I guess I just got ahead of myself."

"I'll save you some hot water," Hannibal says, and turns on his heel so that Will cannot see the hurt that's surely written all over his face.

***

As he rinses shampoo from his hair, he wonders if Will might choose to slip away in the middle of the night. Or might he try to talk things over before he goes? "Hannibal, Chiyoh was right. I'm a bad influence on you. You've been utterly boring since we ran away together. I'm going home. My wife is also boring, but she's cuter than you and all my clothes and dogs are there." Something like that.

No, he'd worry that Hannibal would only try to kill him again. There's so much history, so much hidden truth. It's so much to overcome even now.

Hannibal shuts off the water and wraps a graying towel around his waist. His entire being is alive with determination. He hasn't the faintest idea what he's going to say, but trusts that it will spring to his lips the instant he lays eyes on Will again. They belong together. Surely Will realizes it, even if he doesn't want to.

"Will, we need to talk," he says, and throws open the bathroom door.

The room is empty.

"Will?"

He feels the dizzying loss of solid ground beneath his feet, nearly the same as he did on the bluff. Only it's infinitely worse this time, because this time he's not holding Will.

He feels foolish for doing it, but he opens the motel room door and sticks his head out so he can peer up and down the concrete veranda. There's an ice machine down one way and a soda vending machine down the other, but Will isn't at either of them. He eyes the parking lot and the sidewalk beyond, to no avail. There's simply no denying that Will left while he was still in the shower. He couldn't even wait until nightfall, or to say goodbye.

Hannibal ducks back into the room and closes the door. When he turns around, he walks into Will's old yard in Wolf Trap. 

Snow crunches beneath his boots and he stuffs his hands into the pockets of the coat he stole from one of Mason Verger's henchmen. It's the night he surrendered to the FBI after Will bid him goodbye. The icy wind lashes at his face, curls into his exposed years. He stands the collar up and trudges into the woods behind Will's house.

"Ah, I was wondering when you'd come to see me."

It's his own self, three years younger with longer and darker hair, sitting with his back against a tree.

"Will's gone," he says. "Will's gone and now I'm talking to myself."

His younger self gives him a small smile. "How does that make you feel?"

Hannibal sits down beside him. "Of all the places in my memory palace I could be psychoanalyzed by my past self, I had to choose the frozen woods."

"This place has a meaning to you that's relevant now," his past self says.

"I'm thinking about turning myself in again," Hannibal says.

"Because if you do it just one more time," his past self says, "then Will Graham will finally realize you really mean it?"

"Because I can't take this torture," Hannibal says. 

"Oh, you dear besotted fool," his past self sighs. He turns to Hannibal and takes his face in his hands. "In all your fretting about starting over and learning how to live with Will instead of dying with him, you've forgotten one vitally, _essentially_ important thing."

Hannibal blinks. "What's that?"

His past self leans forward to whisper in his ear. " _You love being tortured by Will Graham_."

When Hannibal blinks again, the woods are gone and the unfortunately decorated room swims into view all around him. He's sitting on the misshapen bed with the cumbersome motel phone perched on his lap, receiver waiting in his hand. He's still staring at it when the door opens some time later.

Somehow, by some miracle, Will is standing there. With the dimming sunlight casting molten amber rays behind him, Will is standing there before him.

"You came back," Hannibal says, fully aware that his voice carries more than a hint of wonder.

"Of _course_ I came back," Will says, brow furrowed in confusion. "Hannibal, what in the hell are you talking about?"

"I thought you'd left for good," Hannibal says. "You were in such a hurry to come ashore, I thought you'd changed your mind about going away with me."

He confesses that he nearly called the police to turn himself in, and he's not certain if Will is more relieved that he didn't, or more angry at the way he overreacted. It turns out that in his haste to reach the wrong conclusion, he entirely missed the note Will had left for him on the dresser. He'd only gone to the drugstore down the street. Hannibal presumes it was to fetch a better quality shampoo than what the motel offers, although he doesn't ask.

Will takes the phone from him and sets it back down on the nightstand. "You... you can't think like this, okay? I'm not leaving."

"I apologize," Hannibal says. "This is all rather new to me, I'm afraid."

"Yeah, to me, too," Will sighs. "Come on. We're both exhausted. I know you've barely slept since we left Chiyoh's house, and don't bother claiming you need less sleep than most people. Let's just get into bed."

"I thought you wanted a shower," Hannibal says.

"I'll take one in the morning," Will says. "You'll just have to put up with me being smelly for now."

Hannibal pulls back the thin blanket and climbs into bed, still wearing the bath towel knotted at his waist. As he turns onto his side, Will gets in behind him and pulls the blanket back up over both of them. After a few moments, Will moves closer to him, close enough that nearly the entire length of their bodies touch. His breath catches as Will's arm sneaks under his own. His hand curls tantalizingly close to Hannibal's chest. At some point in the night, Hannibal will surely find it brushing against his nipple as Will remains obliviously unconscious. 

How can this be anything but the worst kind of torture? This is agony in its purest form.

Hannibal smiles as he drifts into sleep.

* * *

 

**Havana**

They take their time getting to Cuba.

Instead of sailing from Georgia to Florida and straight on from there, they cut west across the Gulf and meander through Mexico for a while. Will picks most of their destinations. Sometimes Hannibal disagrees and Will sidles up to him to change his mind. It's a generally successful tactic. He enjoys indulging Will, especially after letting him work for it just a little bit.

Of course it's a _terrible_ torment. Hannibal suffers every time Will brushes against him or lowers his voice and calls him "doctor" in a timbre that nobody else ever has used. But he reminds himself that doing these things is simply in Will's nature. Will once fluttered his lashes at a bartender in Mérida to get the last of a bottle of a rare tequila that had been set aside for someone else. What he does with Hannibal isn't really so different. Hannibal takes his own advice to enjoy it, as he would the most achingly beautiful notes of a favorite opera.

Naturally, he also acquired that bartender's card or future reference.

Just in case.

***

The first night in their rented home in Havana, Hannibal sets about preparing dinner for them both. Thanks to a few carefully made arrangements and less carefully spent money, the kitchen is fairly well stocked.

He picks up a pan and heads to the fridge. He has an omelet in mind, but asks Will for input out of politeness. "What are you in the mood for?"

"You," Will says. He's been leaning against the wall and drinking whiskey up to this point, and suddenly sets his tumbler down on the counter with more force than seems entirely necessary. "I am in the mood for you... and me."

"Sorry, what was that?"

Hannibal looks over at him and gasps at what he sees. The Will prowling towards him is the same hunter Hannibal saw the night they killed the Dragon. He is all feral beauty and deadly grace. His intent is murderous. Hannibal is too absorbed in the sight before to react when Will wrests the pan from his grip and tosses it aside. He barely has time to react when Will backs him up against the counter.

"I want," Will says, his voice low and purposeful, "for you and me to do what we should've been doing all along."

"Will, we can't," Hannibal says. As glorious as Will is in the midst of a kill, they simply cannot risk getting caught so soon after making their escape. "We _can't_. I'm sorry."

Will pushes himself away with an exasperated groan. "I don't understand you sometimes, Hannibal! I'm meeting you more than halfway here! What are you waiting for?"

Hannibal reaches for his hand and pulls him back. "It's simply not safe yet. Do you want Jack Crawford to find us after all this? After everything we've gone through? If we're sloppy and leave DNA behind---"

Will takes a step back, his face a mask of abject horror. "How would Jack Crawford find out what we're doing in our own home? And DNA? Jesus! Now I'm picturing him _watching_ us!"

"We shouldn't kill in our own home," Hannibal says. "Will, don't be foolish."

Will blinks at him, mouth agape, and then laughs. He laughs so hard and for so long, that he doubles over and has to wipe tears from his eyes.

"Hannibal," he says as the laughter finally ebbs. "I'm not talking about us _killing_ someone together."

Now it's Hannibal's turn to blink in confusion. "Then what _are_ you talking about?"

"This," Will says, and reaches out to unzip Hannibal's trousers.

Hannibal gasps. "Oh!"

"Yeah, 'oh,'" Will confirms.

Hannibal is stunned into near paralysis. He attempts to recall any of the past instances where he might have misinterpreted Will's meaning, but his brain isn't cooperating with him. It may have something to do with the fact that Will has moved on from his trousers to unbuttoning his shirt.

"You're not breathing," Will says as he tugs the shirt off Hannibal's shoulders.

Hannibal exhales. " _Oh._ "

Will moves up against him so that their bodies are tantalizingly close to touching. He nuzzles into Hannibal's neck just behind his ear. "Am I doing something you'd rather I didn't?"

Hannibal shakes his head. "I'm merely...overwhelmed."

"At least you've moved past monosyllables," Will murmurs, his breath hot against Hannibal's skin.

"I can't promise I'll continue in that vein," Hannibal says.

Will pulls back just enough to make eye contract. He reaches down to position Hannibal's hands over the small of his back. "Pull me closer," he says.

Hannibal does as he's told and feels the hard length of Will's cock pressing against his thigh. He forgets how to breathe again.

He shivers as Will places light, sucking kisses along his jaw from his ear to the corner of his mouth. He turns towards it, seeking Will's mouth with his own out of pure instinct, and the moment their lips touch, a spark lights somewhere in Hannibal's brain that blasts away his prior paralysis.

In an instant, he's grasping at Will with a desperate need to meld their bodies together. He's digging his fingers into Will's back hard enough to nearly lift him off the floor. Will, still kissing him, makes encouraging little sounds that Hannibal feels with the tip of his tongue, the roof of his mouth. Hannibal licks away every remaining trace of the flavor whiskey until there is only the taste of Will---far more intoxicating than any liquor.

They undress one another in fits and starts as they half run, half stumble up the stairs to the bedroom. For Hannibal, still in a bit of a daze, it's a slight struggle to keep up with Will, who apparently has been angling towards this for some time. It's like dancing with someone who knows the choreography while he himself is still in a state of shock over the fact that music is playing.

Will shimmies out of his underwear and throws them across the room.

"So messy," Hannibal says, pouncing on him with another kiss.

Will backs away from him to hop up onto the bed. "It's your fault for keeping me waiting for so long. I don't have time to be tidy now. Anyway, as I recall, _your_ underwear is in the hallway."

"I had no idea how you felt," Hannibal says. He crawls over Will, who moves backwards to give him room. "I promise you, if I'd known sooner, I would have indulged your every desire."

Will laughs and shakes his head as if he can't believe what he's hearing.

Hannibal is just about to reassert his lack of awareness, but Will's laughter subsides and his look is replaced by something like the predatory heat Hannibal witnessed in the kitchen, and on the night of their hunt. He thrills at the sight of it, but it's almost too much to take in. When Will touches him, raking fingers lightly over his thighs, Hannibal jumps as if from a small zing of electric shock.

There is no blueprint for what happens next, no sheet music he can rehearse. He has never in his life been unsure of himself in bed, perhaps because nothing that ever transpired with other sexual partners has mattered. Not _truly_ mattered. He realizes with another small jolt that he's never _really_ made love with anyone before. He was used to forging alliances and alibis in bed, not... _this_.

Will lies back against the pillows. "Come here." His tilts up his face in invitation.

Hannibal leans forward, touching his lips to Will's without deepening it into a kiss. "Like this?"

"Like this," Will says, and pulls him down until their bodies are snug together, skin to skin.

Will kisses every plane of his face in tender exploration. In return, Hannibal kisses him as he once thought would be able only in the odd dream here and there. Deeply, with the languor afforded to those who have their entire lives ahead of them. He nuzzles his way down Will's throat, taking in the scent of him, memorizing it, taking in every stray molecule from the soft, warm spot behind his ear down his chest and across to his amply haired armpit.

Will shifts the both of them so that they're lying on their sides, face to face, as they have often slept together on their journey. This time, though, Will brings his leg over Hannibal's hip and draws him closer. Hannibal gasps as Will takes both their erections in hand, stroking them together.

"I won't last," he warns Will.

Suddenly, Will sits up. "I need my pants."

Hannibal holds back a scream. "Are you getting dressed?"

"No, no, I need---"

Will dives over the side of the bed and pulls a small bottle from his pants pocket. He holds it up with a grin and explains he's been carrying it around since Savannah. That time Hannibal thought Will had left him for good, he was actually gone on an errand to steal this, the most blessed bottle of lubricant in all of creation, from the drugstore down the street from their motel.

He lies back again, taking one of the pillows from behind his head and positioning it under his buttocks. He opens his legs.

Hannibal fumbles with the bottle cap. Seeing Will laid bare like this, inviting and trusting... exposed inside and out. His scars, old and new, are on display. Hannibal hardly ever allowed himself to think such a gesture might be given him someday, and here it is, real and waiting. It takes all his concentration to slick his fingers and push the first one into the tight ring of muscle that's been offered to him.

He settles down between Will's legs, kisses the inside of his thighs to where they abut his perineum. He works in another finger, crooking it up to better press Will's prostate. Will responds with and jabs at the empty space above him with his erection, purely out of reflex and desperation for contact. Hannibal obliges and places his mouth over the flushed pink head of Will's cock. A quick swallow and he feels it bumping the back of his throat.

To consume Will like this... how did he ever think that devouring him in the literal sense would sate him? If he had succeeded then, he would have more than regretted it; he would have been destroyed by it.

Will makes high, needy sounds... pretty little begging sounds. Hannibal edges in a third finger, and glances up to see Will staring back at him. "In me, now," Will demands in something like a growl

Hannibal would like to suck him to completion, but he cannot refuse him.

Hannibal reluctantly lets Will's cock slip from his mouth. He repositions himself on his knees and pushes inside as slowly as he can. He can hear his own trembling, ragged breath, and Will murmuring encouraging sounds at him punctuated by actual words like "yes" and "more" and then Hannibal's own name. He is so hot inside---almost feverishly so---and so tight even as he accommodates Hannibal's cock so perfectly. If anyone has ever been inside him before, nobody else will have the same privilege from this day on. He looks into Will's eyes and wonders if he can convey his desire with no more than that.

Will holds out his arms. "Come to me...come on, now"

Hannibal stretches out over him, bodies slick and pressed together, as Will wraps legs and arms around him, holding him so still and so close he can feel their heartbeats matching one another.

"Go on," Will whispers in his ear. "I want everything you have."

Hannibal moves slowly at first, easing out only an inch or two before thrusting back into him. Will's fingers claw at his back as his gasps become frantic whimpers. Hannibal can feel Will's hard cock trapped between them, slick with preejaculate, and angles his thrusts so that his belly slides against it. Will moans with pleasure and arches his neck.

"Will, look at me."

Will's head lolls on the pillow. His eyes are dazed, wild, until they meet Hannibal's. They hold each other's gazes even as Hannibal's movements become more forceful, his rhythm quick and steady until it falters into an erratic and desperate search for deeper and deeper contact. 

"Will---"

"Yes, inside me," Will says, intuiting his meaning.

Hannibal feels as though his entire body is being everted, his nerves exposed to the air as he orgasms in shuddering waves. He keeps thrusting until his cock is nearly soft again, immediately addicted to the sensation of stroking through his own semen as it collects inside Will. It feels as if there's no separation between them. _We're conjoined..._ He reaches between their bodies to take Will's still-hard shaft in hand and bring him to orgasm. Will thrusts weakly against his belly and turns his head for a kiss even as he can barely catch his breath.

Rolling over onto his back, Hannibal pulls Will toward him. Will lands in a sprawl half on top of him and drops his head onto Hannibal's chest. It's so like their embrace on the bluff that Hannibal falls all over again.

***

While Will catches his breath, Hannibal allows his eyes to close. He steps into one of the newer rooms inside his memory palace.

Chiyoh stands with her arms crossed, leaning against the window frame in the bedroom where he woke up after surgery. She raises an eyebrow at him. "Odd. The last few people you visited for help were psychiatrists. "

"I haven't come to ask your advice," he says. He puts on a robe, but doesn't bother crossing any further into the room than the doorway. "Since I may never see you again in reality, I came here to tell you you were both right and wrong about Will."

She gives him a faintly disappointed look, but nods at him to continue.

"He _does_ make me containable," Hannibal says. "Not by the police or the FBI or prison, though. By _him_. His mind, his body... are so much more vast than what the world has ever offered me. To be contained by him is to live in something greater than this world and I understand now that he feels the same. The two of us? Nobody can conceive of what we are together. I've barely begun to grasp it myself."

" _Nakama_ ," she says.

Hannibal smiles. "That's wholly inadequate to describe us now."

He turns away and, with one last backwards glance, shuts the door behind him. 

When he opens his eyes, he's in Will's arms again, where he belongs.

 

 

(continued from Will's POV in [the first chapter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13377942).

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The dialogue from Hannibal's point of view is not 100% the same as it was from Will's point of view even in scenes that mirror each other. They're _factually_ the same but the wording is just a little bit different in places. Since both stories are deep into their respective points of view, I imagined there would be a slight "unreliable narrator" thing going on.
> 
> 2\. Re: Chiyoh's line in Japanese. I asked for a translation of "I should have left you on the rocks. Both of you. There will come a time when you will wish I had." Apoptoses over on Tumblr came to my aid. Thank you!!


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